Here’s a quote from Steve (@timbuckteeth) Wheeler’s “rant” about the flipped classroom:

What ‘flipping the classroom’ boils down to it seems, is the creation of online content including videos that offsets the need for students to physically attend class.

That’s what I would call a “sloppy” use of the term “flipped class.” I’m not blaming Wheeler, however. (And “rant” is perhaps to harsh a term for his post.) I don’t know him, but he is often mentioned by educational technologists whom I very much respect, so I take him to be a pretty sharp guy. He’s been led astray by others who have used the term “flipped class” to describe teaching approaches that don’t involve a single bit of flipping. And when sharp guys get led astray by poor terminology use, that bothers me.

In math, you usually have a classroom where students just listen to you talk the entire time and then they go home and struggle with the problem and never get to have any kind of real engaging discussion on it. So I’ve been used Camtasia Studio to record lectures at home, and students watch those lessons for homework… Then in class we’re able to do homework problems together. Students are engaged. They can have me walk around and help them one on one, which I never would have had time for if I had to lecture first.

And here’s a quote from an interview with Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur, who sees learning physics a two-step process featuring the transfer of information followed by the assimilation of that information:

‘In the standard [science teaching] approach, the emphasis in class is on the first, and the second is left to the student on his or her own, outside of the classroom,’ he says. ‘If you think about this rationally, you have to flip that, and put the first one outside the classroom, and the second inside. So I began to ask my students to read my lecture notes before class, and then tell me what questions they have [ordinarily, using the course’s website], and when we meet, we discuss those questions.’

And here’s Maureen Lage, Glenn Pratt, and Michael Treglia writing on “inverting the classroom” in the Journal of Economic Education way back in 2000:

Inverting the classroom means that events that have traditionally taken place inside the classroom now take place outside the classroom and vice versa… For example, the use of the World Wide Web and multimedia computers (and/or VCRs) enables students to view lectures either in computer labs or at home, whereas homework assignments can be done in class, in groups.

Whether you call it the flipped classroom or just-in-time teaching (as Mazur has done in the past) or the inverted classroom, the idea is the same: What would traditionally happen during class–what Mazur calls the transfer step–is shifted to before class, freeing class time for the kind of work that students would traditionally do on their own as homework. Since, as Mazur points out, it’s that second step that’s the more challenging of the two, why not have it happen during class when students can get help from their teacher and other students? That way each student can get one-on-one help from a teacher, as Stacey Roshan points out.

It’s this reversal of the use of in-class and out-of-class time that’s at the heart of the “flipped class.” More to the point, what really makes a “flipped class” works is what happens during class–the problem solving, the discussion, the group work, the feedback from teachers and peers. That’s where the deep learning happens. What happens before class is just whatever is needed to get students ready to participate more fully in the in-class activities.

Here’s another quote from Stacey Roshan from that interview:

The way we were taught is not necessarily the way that we should teach students. And so we need to embrace the new technology that we’re surrounded with to help enhance our lessons.

I fully agree with Stacey’s first statement, but I don’t fully agree with it when modified by her second statement. I’m all for enhancing teaching with technology (as anyone who has read a single blog post of mine can attest), but it’s not the technology that makes the flipped class work. What makes it work is the fact that it upends the “stand and deliver” lecture model of teaching.

That’s why I object to the title of the Wired Magazine piece that Steve Wheeler cites: “Flipping the Classroom Requires More Than Video.” In fact, flipping the classroom doesn’t require video at all! There are plenty of us (many inspired by Eric Mazur) who teach in the math and sciences who ask students to come to class prepared to “assimilate” by having read their textbooks. The textbook is not a new technology, but it’s one that college teachers have perhaps not embraced to the extent that they could.

(Aside: Nothing I’ve said here is likely to make much sense to those who teach in the humanities, where it’s the norm to expect students to come to class having done the reading, then spend class time discussing that reading. Where humanities faculty might find this “flipped classroom” discussion interesting is in the ways that science and math teachers have found to hold students accountable for coming to class prepared. A common lament among humanities professors is that students don’t actually do the reading…)

Don’t get me wrong: I see lots of potential in having students prepare for class by watching short videos that introduce and explain course content. And I’m glad that technology makes such videos relatively easy for instructors to create–and that we’re not using the VCRs that those economists mentioned back in 2000! I’m particularly intrigued by the potential for students to watch (and rewatch) mobile-friendly videos on their smart phones and tablets.

However, I worry that talking about the “flipped class” as something that necessarily involves videos give educators the wrong idea. I don’t want the “flipped class” to turn into a buzzword without any real meaning–assuming that hasn’t already happened–because I see real value in the idea at the core of the “flipped class.” I don’t want educators to miss that idea because of sloppy terminology use.

8 Responses to "Flipping Out"

Thanks, Derek, for this wonderful, thoughtful explanation! As a humanist (English, even!), I would just say there are plenty of humanists who don’t spend class time nearly so purposefully as the examples you have given here. Indeed, students often leave those classrooms wondering what in the heck they “learned.”. In training first-time teachers of writing, I used to ask TAs to move away from asking themselves, “what will students DO” (for homework, in class, etc.) and instead of ask, “what will doing that thing I have cooked up in my head DO FOR them?”

In some ways, the notion of inverting or flipping the classroom just creates opportunities to ask this kind of question. And once you ask it, and really consider the answer, it’s hard to go back to a monologue or wandering discussion.

Great post! To support my second statement (which doesn’t make as much sense when taken out of context), I do believe that technology is a tool that gives up an opportunity to do things inside or outside of the classroom that we would be unable to do without it. I didn’t mean, at all, that videos were the “technology”. In history, for instance, embracing the technology might mean starting a collaborative discussion via wiki or google docs to get the conversation flowing BEFORE class. Also, I would never say to start with the technology. I’m all about observing and tweaking — and looking to technology to possibly offer a solution to a problem. For me, the video lessons outside of the classroom were my solution to the anxiety problem I faced in my class. I didn’t look first at the technology and think about creative ways that I might be able to incorporate it into the classroom (though that’s not *necessarily* wrong either – I don’t believe there is a right or wrong way to do all of this).

To me, flipping the classroom is about shaking up the traditional classroom dynamic – as you say – and making the classroom experience a more meaningful one. There really isn’t one definition of the flipped classroom, and as I’ve just written in a recent post on my blog, my structure changes depending on what class I’m teaching.

[…] good to me. Much of the discussion I’ve seen lately has raised interesting points about the place of technology, pointing out that while lecture videos may be useful, they’re not necessarily a required […]

[…] But, before you dismiss the concept as yet another teaching and technology fad, you should first consider that the ultimate goal of flipping has nothing to do with technology. As Derek Bruff puts it, “I’m all for enhancing teaching with technology … but it’s not the technology that makes the flipped class work. What makes it work is the fact that it upends the “stand and deliver” lecture model of teaching.” (Flipping Out, April 30, 2012, http://derekbruff.org/?p=2108). […]

[…] Educause Learning Initiative’s 7 things you should know about flipped classrooms This reference describes recorded lectures as a mechanism for student learning outside of class, but recorded lectures are only one of a wide variety of ways for students to learn before class. Recorded lectures are not necessary for flipping the classroom, as described by Derek Bruff in Flipping out. […]

[…] a complimentary copy of the book for my effort. I’m also cited in the book twice, once for a blog post on the flipped classroom and once for my book on teaching with clickers. And, for what it’s worth, I interviewed James […]

[…] much about lecture videos. Isn’t that what the flipped classroom is all about? No, but that’s a very common misconception. The lecture video portion of the flipped classroom approach gets a lot of attention because […]